


When of No Use

by rikacain



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-20
Updated: 2012-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-08 04:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rikacain/pseuds/rikacain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no need to hold onto something repulsive when it has far outlived its usefulness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When of No Use

She was typing away on the laptop when Richard returned, shaking and scared and _oh_ , Katherine thought in an attempt to be sympathetic, _the poor thing_. 

"K-Kitty," Richard stuttered out as he closed and locked the door behind him, "Kitty, I'm sorry about, I'm sorry."

[…in the most astonishing turn of events] she typed, as Richard slid onto her couch, [it has been revealed that Sherlock Holmes] and through the mirror conveniently across her, she could see the actor put his hands to his face and tremble, his whole body wracked with sobs. She left her laptop after a few moments of deliberating on how to tell the world 'Sherlock Holmes was a fraud' in the most dramatic way possible to no success, sitting next to Richard carefully, making sure to stay a bit away from him. Give him some personal space, she read somewhere.

"It's not your fault that Sherlock Holmes found you. Tea, Richard?" she asked after a few moments of just watching the man.

"No, no, thank you," Richard breathed out and looked up, his eyes bloodshot and glistening with tears. (She'll make sure to use that in her article later, her big scoop.) "Can, can I tell you a story? I've al- always loved telling people stories, it's really relaxing, it's why I, you know, became a story-teller," and he rambled on and on and Katherine just heard him, but did not listen.

He paused to take a breath and Katherine leant forward. "Of course you can tell me a story," she reassured him, and the smile on her face was sickly sweet but undoubtedly charming. "What's your favorite? Tell me your favorite."

Richard laughed, quick breathless huffs of air that hissed against his throat. "Oh no, not my favorite, it's my own story, one I- I thought of, see? You don't mind me telling my own story? No one ever heard it before."

Katherine nodded, and Richard sat back, breathing in and out, in and out, deeply. "Once upon a time," he lilted carefully. "There was a girl named Katherine."

* * * * *

"Now Katherine had a very nice mother and a very gruff father, but she was awfully naughty. She would not listen when they told her not to set the carpet on fire, a beautifully woven red piece of work that her mother had worked on for ages. She would not listen when they told her to study really, really hard - because boys and girls, school is very, very important for everyone. She would not listen when they told her how much they loved her, and instead ran far, far away from her boring, boring home."

Katherine sucked in a deep breath. She had not been Katherine for ages, adopting the name Kitty which was much more cuter than Katherine, Kathy, Kat. Katherine was not an unusual name and she never told Richard that she was once a Katherine, either. Pure coincidence, surely.

Richard still sat across, his eyes closed as if he was imagining, remembering. It was pure coincidence that Katherine had once indeed set her mother's carpet on fire, pure coincidence that she dropped out of school eventually, pure coincidence that she took to the streets, away from Wells and to London where everything was so much bigger and much better until she was forced to find herself work in a news company. 

"But that's not all!" Richard's eyes flew open wide, as if in mock surprise. She jerked back as he focused on her, Richard was a very good actor, an excellent one, _why doesn't he have any awards-_ "One day, Katherine met this big, bad wizard. Everyone knew that this wizard was very crafty and very wicked, and everyone made sure to stay away from him. But Katherine did not listen, oh no, she did not. One day, the big bad wizard came to Katherine and told her that he was not a big bad wizard, but a fluffy bunny. And do you know what happened?"

"No," she tried to imitate a child's voice, to cover the sense of dread that was approaching. "What happened?"

"Katherine believed." Richard- Moriarty- no, Richard stared at her and smiled, honest and affable and Katherine wanted to get up, to run but she could not. "Katherine, the foolish little girl who was so naughty and thought herself so, so smart, refused to heed those before her and believed. She decided to tell the others too, but who would believe her? So the big bad wizard helped her find more and more information, helped her plant the same idea in other people's head because one little naughty girl cannot change the world alone. And she believed in him all along."

"The wizard tricked her," Richard said softly, and suddenly there was a hissing noise as he pressed open a metal cylinder and dropped it to the floor. "He tricked her, and she never knew," and he pulled a gas mask over his face, the white smoke covering everything in her view like a great thick white mist. Katherine tried to scream, the white smoke drawing in and smothering and everything blurred - but he continued telling her his story- no, it was  _her_ story, hers all along, Richard Brooks had never existed and Jim Moriarty was so very real. 

"And one day, the wizard did not need her any more. Everyone already loved him, so why did he need to keep one naughty girl that nobody likes around? So he got rid of her." the voice was muffled behind the mask, but Katherine heard everything, and she was slipping away. "And the moral of the story is, boys and girls is that you can never trust big, bad wizards - but so many of you are so  _stupid_ as Katherine to do it anyway."

Moriarty stood up, and strode over to the door. "Don't worry, Kathy," he called over his shoulder. "I'll continue your poor excuse of an article under your name. You'll be like Van Gogh, dead before even knowing your success!" He laughed, but then stopped as suddenly as he started. "Oh no, they're actually my articles, so you get no credit," Moriarty sing-songed. 

"One last thing, Kathy," and his face floated in front of her, leering and ugly. "You. Repel. Me."

And as the last goodbye slips through her mind, Katherine thinks  _yes, I repel me too_ .

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
